


Aftermath Of The Ink Machine

by archare



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: BATIM, Other, post-ink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2020-11-28 09:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20964446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archare/pseuds/archare
Summary: [takes place after in-game events!]





	1. aftermath

Ambient sunlight shone through the small apartment window. Wherever the light touched, you could see scattered dust particles swirling above the wooden table. It might have come to your attention that I referred to not just a wooden table, but a specific one.

This table was the small, chipped desk in Joey Drew’s living room. He and Sammy were currently awkwardly sat across from each other, each with a coffee mug in hand. Both of them had reluctantly agreed to sit down and talk about everything that had happened for the past few decades; however, now that they were here, neither of them knew where to start.

“Why?” Eventually, Sammy was to first person to engage with the other.

Joey looked up from inspecting the wood grain on his table to acknowledge this… extremely vague question.

“Why what?” Joey asked, his question sounding oblivious and almost innocent- like a question some child would ask.

Sammy met his blinking stare with frustration. “You’d think someone would remember meddling with the occult and driving his hellish studio into bankruptcy.”

“Alright, calm down.” Joey rolled his eyes. “I did everything for a reason.” When he was met with an aggressively doubtful look, Joey sighed and continued. “I thought I was doing good for the studio. You know.. Success and innovation are worth a few sacrifices and all that. Maybe I got a bit caught up in spite after Henry left, and I’m sorry about-” He stopped to gesture vaguely towards Sammy, whose hair was previously blond and now entirely black.

“ ’A bit caught up in spite?’ Very funny, Joey; feels like you restored thirty years worth of my sanity with that one-liner.” Sammy paused to take a breath, shakily leaning back on his chair. “If Henry leaving left that much impact on you, maybe you should rethink your priorities. You know, _ think _ for once.”

Joey thought for a moment; maybe a few seconds more than moment, but what he considered to be a short time before responding with the one thing he strongly believed to be the truth.

“I cared about him. More than you could comprehend.”

Sammy could’ve laughed. He didn’t believe a single thing that came out of Joey’s mouth. In fact, thanks to Mr. Drew himself, he had spent the past thirty years of his life believing in something pointless in a studio where time was a nonexistent concept.

“You.. didn’t care about Henry. You were infatuated with the idea of him. Someone who wouldn’t complain when you took their name off your collaborative masterpieces, correct?” Sammy straightened up, making bitter eye contact with Joey. “You were obsessed with him.”

Joey knew he had to stop himself. After all, there were no denying that he put his studio family through an immense amount of suffering. Henry broke the loop and everyone who came back from the studio now looked almost exactly like they did before everything had happened- this was his chance at redemption. Sammy was infuriating him, sure, but he had to stop himself. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say-

“Oh, and you’d know all about being obsessive, wouldn’t you?”

_[cue cartoon laugh track.]_

Joey felt conflicting waves of underlying guilt and satisfaction from watching the other process what he’d just said.

“That’s- not..” Before Sammy could continue with his halted, flushed reply, a pair of broad shoulders occupied the doorway behind him. The faint squeaks from the friction of metal was too familiar and exclusive to a certain someone that his presence was instantly recognizable.

“Morning, Tommy,” said Joey, as if to completely disregard the previous conversation. Tom looked at Joey, then at Sammy before he turned away and wordlessly headed for the kitchen cupboards. An issue was that the kitchen was part of the living room, meaning he had no escape from the inevitable conversation which would come his way.

“We were.. talking,” Joey explained with his eyes glued on Tom’s prosthetic metal arm. It moved so naturally; a fine work of engineering indeed.

“I could see that,” Tom replied gruffly, his back still turned from the two at the table. He was busy rummaging through the cupboards for a mug to make coffee in and was in no mood to humor anyone.

When he eventually discovered that the two which were currently being used were the only coffee mugs in the house, he exhaled exhaustedly and finally spun to face the dreaded interaction.

Old, worn-out Joey Drew and significantly younger in appearance but equally worn-out Sammy Lawrence. They were both staring at him as if they were expecting him to say something. This uncomfortable silence was so long that Tom nearly started when Sammy spoke again. Of course, the tension wasn’t helped by the fact that everyone was on edge due to the past few days’ circumstances.

“You owe me an apology,” Sammy scowled eventually, directing his attention back to Joey. “You left everything in shambles and somewhat taped the mess back together. That doesn’t bring back thirty years, Joey; how hard is it to understand that? Don’t make this about me and what I did wrong.”

“You did a lot of things wrong,” Tom offered, glancing at Sammy.

“Thanks, Tom. I take medication for intermittent headaches thanks to you.” Sammy, perhaps with a bit too much force, pointed at the back of his head where Tom’s very axe had been plunged into numerous times.

“You would’ve _ killed _ Henry,” Tom snapped back, walking to stand over where Sammy was seated. “He got us out of the studio, maybe he deserves some respect as a human life form? Didn’t decades of thinking things over teach you some manners?”

Sammy got up with such hostility that his chair tumbled over and hit the wall with a loud crash.

“Couldn’t you have done anything else?” Sammy asked with a desperate kind of anger which was seen often with him. “Pushed me? Knocked me out? The entire time we were stuck there, I don’t recall anyone trying to reason with me- oh, _ wait _ . I _ couldn’t _ be reasoned with. I don’t know what gave you the idea that I was capable of fixing some attitude problem you think I have, Tom, or even holding a proper conversation, but that’s my point. I couldn’t think straight- this shouldn’t be about me.”

Tom glared back at Sammy with an equal amount of loathing as he was being given.

“_ What _,” Tom said through his teeth, “did I say about calling me ‘Tom’?”

Nothing could’ve described Sammy’s expression better than pure incredulity. For a second, he stood dumbfounded and looking like he wanted to express something other than shock. Of course, expression wasn’t his strong suit; he proceeded to storm away and violently slam the door behind him.

“Shame,” Joey sighed, tiredly gazing at the door through which Sammy had left. A sudden thought crossed his mind, but he decided to leave it behind him for now. “I’m gonna have to ask him to talk again. I hated doing that the first time.”


	2. halo

Life had its ups and downs, but the pros were seemingly nowhere to be found.

A lot of things _seemed_ to be a certain way. Slamming the door to Joey’s apartment unit _seemed_ like a good idea at the time, but looking back, it was nothing more than a childish display of anger. For all his talk of being a bigger person than whoever he deemed impertinent, he wasn’t doing a great job at not being a hypocrite.

He stopped in his tracks to internally laugh at himself. Impertinent was an ironic word coming from him, and he was fully aware. His wandering thoughts, however, were put aside as he spotted a certain co-worker standing by the windowsill at the end of the hall.

“Susie,” he said simply. That was all he needed to catch her attention, seeing as she immediately jumped at her wandering train of thought being interrupted so abruptly. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know..” She grinned sadly, tracing the worn patterns on the carpet with her gaze. “I wish I could say I was fine, but- I think I speak for everyone when I say I feel terrible.” As she finished her sentence, her hand reached to touch the bandages on her face. A few were plastered on in hopes of stopping where her face had previously melted from scarring.

So many scars, both physical and emotional, were left from being Alice Angel; or a twisted, malicious version of her anyway. Perhaps the one that hurt most was the reminder that she had injured numerous other people, followed by the stabbing pain that physically ached in her chest.

Sammy gave her a solemn nod and sighed. “You can say that again.” He and Susie both stared at the floor. There was nothing interesting about it, it’s just that they were too busy recollecting thirty years’ worth of trauma and trying to make something of their current situation.

Susie spoke up all of a sudden. “And I will.”

“Huh?”

“I said,” she was almost grinning. “I _will_ say it again. I feel fucking horrible. But you know what? It’s not the worst I’ve felt in my life! Look at you, Sammy.”

Sammy blankly looked around for the nearest mirror only to earn an exasperated sigh from Susie. “No, I didn’t mean it literal- Oh, forget it, you’re ruining my moment. What I’m trying to say is— we’re here! We’re still alive, aren’t we? In a whole new decade, too— still in our late twenties!”

Sammy stared at her unexpected energy. “And.. what about it?”

Susie stared back at him, incredulous. “You’re still as oblivious as you’ve always been, huh?”

“Well, the cult thing didn’t really do me any favors.”

“Noted. Anyway,” she continued, “_We get to live in the moment now._ Precious, passing moments, not neverending cycles. We can do whatever we want and enjoy the rest of our lives!”

He wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. Part of him already knew all this, but it’d never really settled in as an established fact in his mind. Looking back, breaking out of the cycle and regaining his human body seemed too good to be true; he’d somehow forgotten the bliss in the tension and confusion. It somehow felt… _wrong _to celebrate this, yet he could see where Susie was coming from. Poor girl— she deserved a break.

“So, um..” he said cautiously, looking her in the eye again. “Where do we start?”

The smile Susie gave him wasn’t entirely honest, but the sadness in it was blurred out by the gleeful sunshine shining through the window behind her.

“How about we go and get ice-cream?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this one's a little short but hope you enjoyed it nonetheless!)


End file.
